Innerspace. An otherwise terrific movie fumbles in the last few minutes with its abrupt "Jack Putter to the rescue!" ending, followed by Rod Stewart taking up space that would've been better occupied by Jerry Goldsmith.

There's really nothing like the feeling of getting to the end of a movie you're otherwise liking and being like, "What? I sit through this thing and that's how they end it?"

The Call was another one like that. Not a fantastic film, but I thought it was a competently made and entertaining little action-thriller, but the final scene (literally, the last minute or so of the movie) was very disappointing. Not to mention a complete betrayal of the characters you just spent ninety minutes with.

I love that ending, so did by all reports the guy whose story the film was based on , STEPHEN KING.

It's about as pitch black and dark as you can get, a very bad choice was made, but given the available facts a UNDERSTANDABLE ONE, what follow is powerful and there is one there we can all agree on.

Well, to each his own. I thought the ending to No Country For Old Men perfectly realized Cormac's views on life and death, but for me the ending to The Mist just delivered too much pain, but life can do that. Again, we're just expressing opinions.

I agree with Joan about NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN; the ending is perfect.

I love that ending, so did by all reports the guy whose story the film was based on , STEPHEN KING.

It's about as pitch black and dark as you can get, a very bad choice was made, but given the available facts a UNDERSTANDABLE ONE, what follow is powerful and there is one there we can all agree on.

NO ONE FORGETS THE ENDING OF THIS FILM.

Ford A. Thaxton

Yes....apparently King was against changing the ending until he saw what had been filmed, then he was quoted as saying he wished he had thought of that ending first....still shocks me even now....

I also love the ending of The Mist, the most pitilessly bleak ending to a genre movie since Brian De Palma's Blow Out. That ending haunted me for DAYS afterwards (and the fact that there was actual fog outside the theater as I exited only enhanced my brooding).

Two Scorsese movies I remember for their unsatisfactory endings, I wouldn't call them worst ending ever; Shutter Island, The Departed.

I would definitely mention A Nightmare on elm Street which could have been a better horror classic had it ditched the silly add-on nightmare sequence with Nancy's mother. Total garbage scene and we have Bob Shaye to thank for it (Craven thought it was a bad idea).

Regarding "The Mist", It's about as nasty an ending as the original Night of The Living Dead. Which does make it work for me

Regarding "The Ninth Gate", Michael, I urge you to watch it again and although it's a bit of an anticlimax with the fade out into the light, its setup happens earlier in the movie and as such is the natural outcome to Corso's journey.

Well, to each his own. I thought the ending to No Country For Old Men perfectly realized Cormac's views on life and death.

I also thought the ending of No Country for Old Men perfectly encapsulated the theme of the film. It not only matched Cormac's vision but also seemed to fit the world view of the Coen brothers. It's similar to the idea expressed in Fargo, which is the difficulty basically decent people have in comprehending the violence and evil that human beings are capable of doing to one another.

Such a literal ending for a mostly mysterious picture about what is out there in the water for most of the film. The ending was a total mistake. Ironically, when he made the directors cut, and added material in, it was even worse.

Another similar one was Drag Me to Hell. I was really, really liking that movie up until the last second twist ending. Completely unnecessary and instantly took what I would have rated a solid 5/5 movie to a disappointing 2/5.

Absolutely. I don't give a housefly's fart if it was 'right there in the title'. Christine didn't deserve that.

WAR OF THE WORLDS (Spielberg) I was really into the movie, but the ending was just... awful. Just awful. I snorted and laughed.

Honorable Mentions:

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL Wow. Just horrid. BUT- this one is not the grand champion of horrible endings, because the whole thing was pretty bad. It's not just the ending that does this one in.

THE PARTY* Peter Sellers is the funniest man alive for an hour, and then the movie has one of the worst final 30 minutes of all time. The whole thing just gets stupid and random. To be fair, though, I'm not sure how one is supposed to properly "end" comedies like this. Which leads to....

MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL* Wha...? This ending is just horrible. But, as with THE PARTY, I'm not sure how it *should* have ended.

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY I am a smart, well-educated, reasonably well-cultured man. I am a cinema and storytelling buff. I enjoy science fiction, and I enjoy philosophy and big questions. I appreciate nuance, ambiguity, abstraction, and poetry. But to this day, this ending frustrates me to no end.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: PART II When I saw this in theaters as a kid, followed by the teaser for Part III, the entire audience gave a major groan and booed. We felt completely ripped off (remember that this was all pre-internet, and none of us knew that the 2nd installment would end on such a cliffhanger, or that there was even a Part III). It didn't even leave us with some major discoveries to chew on, as at least was the case with EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

*Bonus feature - How to properly end a comedy:

HOT FUZZ I've always felt this comedy did an incredible job with the ending. Comedies often go off the rails by trying to get bigger, zanier, crazier, and then ending in some sort of screwball "finale" that I end up finding just stupid. Either that, or everything just resolves unexpectedly in a stupid way out of nowhere. HOT FUZZ avoided this tendency and still managed to build to a big finish by completely changing the *type* of parody/comedy that they were doing. A whole genre shift- but still with parody in mind. As a result, it was a complete change of gears that got me interested all over in a new way for the last act of the film. Well done!

And for what it's worth, the ending of THE ABYSS has never bothered me like it seems to bother everyone else. I don't love it or hate it, but it doesn't ruin the movie at all for me. I love this movie. In my opinion, it is James Cameron's best.

WAR OF THE WORLDS (Spielberg) I was really into the movie, but the ending was just... awful. Just awful. I snorted and laughed.

To be fair, that is the actual ending to the story and not something exclusive to the Spielberg version. I was actually surprised they stuck with it, as I figured audiences today would find it too lackluster and anti-climactic. I liked that they kept it, though, and didn't force a cliched epic scale military showdown with the aliens or anything like that.

EDIT: Oops. If you were talking about the son turning up alive at the end, yeah, that was a sour moment.

About all these bleak endings, though, such as The Mist, I go to movies to be entertained and forget about my troubles. I have enough uncertainty and depressing crap to deal with already, so the last thing I want to see when I'm expecting entertainment is a movie that leaves me feeling down and in the dumps. That's why World War Z was such a much welcome breath of fresh air. While not everything was back to normal, it ended on a really positive, uplifting note that had me feeling good as I left the theater, and my brother and I had a very fun, spirited conversation during the car ride home. We were like, "Now that's how you end a movie."